


zitha

by mickleborger



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Andorians, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 07:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickleborger/pseuds/mickleborger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Andorian myth about the monsters in the night air on their homeworld in a time before space-flight, before sustainable energy, before even the first circumnavigation.  An Andorian myth about ghosts on the sea-ice and the fear of the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	zitha

It was in the spring that never was that the wind rose up in the night for nights without end and crept into the halls of ice, biting.  The sea-winds came into the mountains and into the cities, their hollow voices sounding through every cavern below the earth, every hall hidden in the ground.  Relentless they echoed through night and sunless day, and when the people woke trembling they dared not venture out to call to the great moon above for fear that it had gone, swallowed by the sea that had finally risen from its bed in hunger.  No flowers bloomed, no fungi glowed; in the depths of Andor only shone the whites of frightened eyes in the flickering of clumsily-lit candles.

There were clatters in the darkness where passed the wind, and any Andorian trying hard to get to sleep would have told themselves that it was only an icicle falling, only a plate tumbling; but the ones who would not sleep, who would not rest for fear of the briny air, sat straight on their beds and watched their doors.  This was the winter that clung too long with claws and teeth.  This was the winter they feared they would never live to have children to tell about.

And right they were.  After weeks the howling became dull and familiar, the distant clanging a mere annoyance.  There were seeds to be sown, perhaps in vain; there were orchards to be tended, perhaps only out of habit.  The fires in the hearths were too low.  The people of Andor, wrapped tight in their skins and furs, unbolted their doors and went out into the halls and gardens to do what they could.  The people of Andor opened their doors.

It was the night, perhaps, that bore what came after, same as it had borne the wind.  It was the wind itself, perhaps, that heralded it; that bore or was born from it.  None knew then and none know now by what curse it came, but it came that the clatters in the corners beyond sight stopped suddenly - and suddenly other things passed beyond sight.  It was nothing at first - wilted vines, missing haircombs - but one morning a cry rose from a home like the ice that crashes upon the shore and it was known that the first beloved was gone.  And after that first, alas! came so many others - not regularly, never noisily.  The bells would chime in the morning and suddenly, suddenly, a child would be gone.  A friend would be vanished.  A bed would be empty.

And what were the people of Andor to do?  There was not villain to be named, no evil face to recognize.  There was only a formless maw and a growing fear; and the wind, in the background, _blowing_. A darkness had come, and it was deeper and heavier than any darkness the world had ever known.  It was a darkness even the people, who lived in the smoldering dark, had come to fear.

Blessed Zitha, stoutest and proudest of their kin, stood up proud one day with flashing eyes and knuckles white on their blade; they flashed their eyes and bared their teeth and stood before the assembly.  Their back was straight.  Their home was empty.

They would go outside.

They would go outside; and though seen as least wise of all unwise decisions, the assembly could not forbid it.  Half of their beds were empty; most of their flower-beds were dry.  Zitha, fury burning steadily in their eyes, stood before the council then and bade leave to go out into the sky.  The assembly could not deny it; the sky, now, as not more terrifying than the dark of the halls.  That the Andorians had come to fear the shade was already a feat.  Zitha was let pass.

And so Zitha set out.

The first gust of wind smacked against their face like a brand of leaves but they grit their teeth, furious and single-minded and lone.  This was not only a darkness that had taken their loved ones; this was a darkness that had claimed their home, crawled into the very root of their world, and Zitha was angry.  Zitha felt deep within them the deep anger that comes from the hottest places in the far-below of the earth, and Zitha was not daunted by the cold nor the winds.  Zitha had nothing now left for the cold to take, and Zitha stormed on into the vast iciness.


End file.
